"There's ma thumping with the poker on the upstairs floor. When it's closing-time, she begins to get restless. I--I wish Selene would come in. She went out with Lester Goldmark in his little flivver, and I get nervous about automobiles." Mr. Bauer slid an open-face watch from his waistcoat. "Good Lord, five-forty, and I've just got time to sell the Maplehurst Emporium a bill of goods!" "Good-night, Milt; and mind you put up that order of assorted neckwear yourself. Greens in ready-tieds are good sellers for this time of the year, and put in some reds and purples for the teamsters." "No sooner said than done." "And come out for supper some Sunday night, Milt. It does mamma good to have young people around." "I'm yours." "Good-night, Milt." He reached across the counter, placing his hand over hers. "Good-night, Mrs. C.," he said, a note lower in his throat; "and remember, that call-on-me stuff wasn't just conversation." "Good-night, Milt," said Mrs. Coblenz, a coating of husk over her own voice and sliding her hand out from beneath, to top his. "You--you're all right!" * * * Upstairs, in a too tufted and too crowded room directly over the frontal half of the store, the window overlooking the remote sea of city was turning taupe, the dusk of early spring, which is faintly tinged with violet, invading. Beside the stove, a base-burner with faint fire showing through its mica, the identity of her figure merged with the fat upholstery of the chair, except where the faint pink through the mica lighted up old flesh, Mrs. Miriam Horowitz, full of years and senile with them, wove with grasses, the ecru of her own skin, wreaths that had mounted to a great stack in a bedroom cupboard. A clock, with a little wheeze and burring attached to each chime, rang six, and upon it, Mrs. Coblenz, breathing from a climb, opened the door. "Ma, why didn't you rap for Katie to come up and light the gas? You'll ruin your eyes, dearie." She found out a match, immediately lighting two jets of a center-chandelier, turning them down from singing, drawing the shades of the two front and the southeast windows, stooping over the upholstered chair to imprint a light kiss. "A fine day, mamma. There'll be an entry this week. Fifty dollars and thirteen cents and another call for garden implements. I think I'll lay in a hardware line after we--we get back. I can use the lower shelf of the china-table, eh, ma?" Mrs. Horowitz, whose face, the color of old linen in the yellowing, emerged rather startling from the still black hair strained back from it, lay back in her chair, turning her profile against the upholstered back, half a wreath and a trail of raffia sliding to the floor. It was as if age had sapped from beneath the skin, so that every curve had collapsed to bagginess, the cheeks and the underchin sagging with too much skin. Even the hands were crinkled like too large gloves, a wide, curiously etched marriage band hanging loosely from the third finger.